Building A Water To Air Intercooler

[risk]

Finally taking the plunge and building a water to air intercooler.

Scored a stock Eagle Talon intercooler off ebay for $10.. Suppose to fit 90-94 Talon. It looked like it would be a good fit based on my throttle body and turbo location. First I pressure tested it to 30psi with no leaks.

(sorry for the crappy ebay pic)

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I cut the ends off before I could take a good pic.. Started out by just holding it in place with some wire.

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Next I figured out what angle bend I needed for the inlet side.. Used a piece of copper wire to get the angle. Low-tech but it works!

Ended up being close to a 30 degree bend.

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[risk]

Got the 3" outlet welded on the top.. lots of grinding to get a good fit. It will connect to the throttle body with a 90 degree silicone coupler.

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Then I put the intercooler back on the car, and lined up the inlet side 30 degree bend. After getting the tubing fitted, I opened up the hole to fit the bigger inlet size. Lots of grinding here too.

Got it tacked in place..

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[andy198712]

nicely fabbed mate!

whats your throttle cable setup?

[turbobaja]

Looks GREAT! Gonna keep the deck shut?

[risk]

Thanks! Decklid still closes, thats the first thing I checked. My old charge pipe would tap the decklid under hard acceleration, so I wanted to make sure I had plenty of clearance this time around.

Throttle cable is from CB performance, part # 3357

[andy198712]

Thanks! Decklid still closes, thats the first thing I checked. My old charge pipe would tap the decklid under hard acceleration, so I wanted to make sure I had plenty of clearance this time around.

Throttle cable is from CB performance, part # 3357

cheers buddy

[Corysvdub]

Looks good, can't wait to see the rest.

[sweetlokin66]

Nice!

[Stripped66]

Nice work!

On a similar note (and not intentionally a thread-jack), how effective do you think this air-to-water IC will be? I have a large air-to-air IC that I've contemplated converting into an air-to-water IC; I've read that air-to-water IC cores are different (though I've never seen the difference) and using an air-to-air core would not be as effective. Any thoughts? Just internet BS, is there a difference, or is the difference not significant enough?

[Steve Arndt]

http://www.autospeed.com/cms/article.ht ... r&A=113105

[risk]

How effective? I have no idea... but even if it removes 50 degrees of IAT it's a win in my book.

I read that article, and some others.. looked at water vs air cores, priced some name brand water to air cores, got sticker shock.. In the end I decided that an OEM intercooler would be a good, cheap way to try it out.

I think that one of the important things is the way you flow water in and out of the IC core.. This is where the aftermarket water to air units fall short... Most of the ones I have seen just flow water in and out on opposite sides. It seems like there are parts of the core that wouldn't recieve much flow, and other parts that would flow too much to have sufficient time to draw heat out.

In my opinion, the IC needs to have some sort of distribution tanks, like end tanks on a cars radiator.. and needs cool water coming in near the bottom, and hot water coming out near the top. I have an idea on how to improve the distribution that I'll show next time I post up my progress.

[Stripped66]

I have an idea on how to improve the distribution that I'll show next time I post up my progress.

I look forward to it!

[risk]

Progress!

Welded a short piece of 1" tubing on for the blow off valve, and got the sides all tacked in place.

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So here's my idea:

The "tank" end will have pieces of rectangular alum stock to act as dividers. The coolant will flow through one side of the divider, into the front of the IC. Then the hot coolant will then flow from the back side of the IC, into the other side of the divider and out to the radiator.

-cold coolant IN is on bottom

-hot coolant OUT is on top

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So, do you guys think it will work well?

[sweetlokin66]

Nice work!

On a similar note (and not intentionally a thread-jack), how effective do you think this air-to-water IC will be? I have a large air-to-air IC that I've contemplated converting into an air-to-water IC; I've read that air-to-water IC cores are different (though I've never seen the difference) and using an air-to-air core would not be as effective. Any thoughts? Just internet BS, is there a difference, or is the difference not significant enough?

Its a bunch of internet crap to purposfully sell two different styles of cores. A core is a core whose efficiency mainly is driven by the convection heat transfer coefficients of the fluids, how much flow for both fluids is achievable, surface area available (how many fins/size of fins you have), and how thick the fins are. So other then sizes of cores all they can offer is how well the core is designed. To make an explaination simple you would have to run a larger air to air intercooler to match the efficiency of any given size of water to air intercooler based on the same core design, however if the design of the core you choose to make the water to air is less efficient then the air to air core, you may have to run a larger water to air to match the efficiency of a better designed air to air core. The only problem with the water to air intercoolers is the secondary requirements to keep the water a constant temperature for the system because eventually the water will reach the same temp as your charge or higher because of other factors (Heat generated by the engine/turbo/exhaust) heat soaking into the system. This is where you either run an icebox or a higher efficiency radiator then your intercooler or ideally both to stay ahead and limit any normalization.

Air to air doesn't need this secondary system which makes it more desirable because there is always a fresh supply of air as long as its not in some sort of recirculation. If it was then it would run into the same normalization problem and would need a secondary system to cool the recalculated air which is redundant.

[panel]

Great how to here.......viewtopic.php?f=3&t=113515